National Artist Fides Cuyugan Asensio’s legacy to Philippine Opera | Power Talks with Pia Arcangel - video Dailymotion

GMA Integrated News

“I have too many guilty pleasures.”   Known as the Grand Dame of Philippine Opera, Professor Emeritus Fides Cuyugan-Asensio looks back on her bright and colorful career as distinguished coloratura soprano, librettist, director and educator. Does she have any regrets? Pia Arcangel interviews a truly remarkable artist in this episode of Power Talks.

Transcript

00:00Tonight, we're honored to feature a national artist, the legendary soprano Fidesz Cuyugan Asensio.

00:07Join us here on Power Talks as we sit down and talk about her remarkable life and the voice that shaped Philippine theater and opera.

00:15One day, I got a call. Fidesz, congratulations. What for? You were voted in. Wow, I started screaming, yay!

00:23Yay! People ask me, what does it take? I said, passion, passion, passion, and share, share, share.

00:31That is my one regret. I wasn't able to balance it well enough. I have too many guilty pleasures.

00:39That has made me the happiest. When I feel that everything comes into place, that is, thank you, God.

00:46Because so many accidents can happen.

00:53Ma'am Fidesz, thank you so much for having us here at your beautiful home in your music room.

01:01You're welcome.

01:02I know that you're still very busy teaching. You still have students who come here to learn from you.

01:10We'd like to ask how you are. I mean, you were awarded the National Artist Award a few years ago.

01:17How's that been?

01:18I was already 93.

01:20Oh, at the age of 93? Okay.

01:23Yes, it took three times.

01:25Because the first time, they didn't know how to present me.

01:29The panel didn't know about my past as a singer.

01:34They knew it only as a writer, a libretto for opera.

01:40Said, where will you put her? Not in literature or not?

01:43Well, I mean, they don't expect me to sing until I'm 93.

01:48So I had to stop singing already.

01:50But the one who presented me knew what to do.

01:56So to put me as a singer, music, because how can you divorce the lyrics of a song from the melody?

02:09So these are melded together.

02:12So whether I'm a libertist, libertist means you write the lyrics for musicals and opera.

02:22So that's how I finally got it.

02:27Just so much fun because I knew that they were already deliberating the final, all the National Artists.

02:37And then one day I got a call from Dr. Ramon Santos, who is also Ramon, I mean, for music.

02:47He says, Phyllis, congratulations.

02:51What for?

02:53I said, why? Don't you know?

02:55What?

02:57Because he was my dean in UP.

03:00We were close.

03:02And she said, you were voted in.

03:05Wow, I started screaming, yay!

03:10Well, we saw in the photos and in the video when you were accepting your award,

03:14I think the joy was very evident in your face.

03:17So now that you have received the status of being National Artist,

03:23how did that change things for you?

03:25Aside, of course, from the influx of invitations to all sorts of events.

03:30I get a lot of perks.

03:32As in reimbursement of medical, my medicines, my diapers.

03:41We'll keep that our little secret.

03:46But we cannot overspend also.

03:49$711,000 a year.

03:51If you overspend, then you have to go from pocket.

03:54From pocket.

03:55Yeah.

03:56Although I have other income.

03:58Well, I heard that your doctors were very happy when you received the award.

04:04They said it really helped you.

04:08Is that correct?

04:09Oh, yes, of course.

04:10Actually, there was a time when I thought I wouldn't, I was giving up already.

04:17That's why there's a little documentary on me, Opera Master or Slave.

04:25Because as a singer, I am the slave of opera.

04:35As a director, I'm the master of opera.

04:42And I did all these things.

04:43I directed opera.

04:45Maybe some people don't know about it, but that's my life.

04:49It's so varied.

04:53Well, speaking of your career in opera, because of course, that's how the public came to know you.

05:00As one of the first Philippine, one of the great Philippine opera singers.

05:04Actually, they called you the great dame of Philippine music.

05:08And what was it like in the early years?

05:12Do you remember being like the pioneer of opera music here in the country?

05:18Yeah.

05:19Sometimes it was nice.

05:21There was jealousy, envy of my other colleagues.

05:26But some people put us up like cockfights.

05:31You know, they really made us fight.

05:33But you did not let that get to you.

05:36Were you able to rise above that?

05:39The fighting?

05:41Sometimes it hurts, you know.

05:43Like there was one who criticized my doing commercials.

05:49Oh, for television.

05:52Another singer, an opera singer.

05:54I'm putting the status of an opera singer down because I was doing commercials.

06:01I said, I get paid for the commercials, 600 pesos.

06:07So is she going to give it to me?

06:09I can't pick it up from the street.

06:12It was a funny commercial in the first place.

06:16Plus also because by doing the commercials, then more people knew about you and about opera.

06:21Yes.

06:22As well.

06:22That's why in Sunday, it's Sunday.

06:24It's way before your time.

06:26When I used to go to Divisoria to get material for our costumes, they would sing.

06:38Sunday, sweet Sunday.

06:42Oh my gosh.

06:43I said, you watch the show?

06:45The show.

06:47Divisoria.

06:48So see, everybody knew.

06:51Everybody knew.

06:52Sunday, sweet Sunday.

06:53A little night of music.

06:55I remember growing up, my parents would watch A Little Night of Music.

06:59And I was thinking, was singing something that you had always wanted to do?

07:06Even as a young girl, was it something you had dreamed of doing professionally?

07:09Yes, actually, I started very early.

07:14My mother was always playing little excerpts from opera on the piano, and she would sing.

07:20These are excerpts simplified.

07:22And of course, I was only six, seven.

07:25I would hear this all the time.

07:28And when my parents, actually, not only my mother, when my parents would quarell, as many

07:38people do, my mother would leave and go to her hometown, leave me as a little girl.

07:45My father would bring me to his, he was a surgeon, surgeon of President Quezon then.

07:54Bring me to the operating room, put me on a stool, and he would be singing while he was

08:00operating.

08:00So I think I inherited from both.

08:03Oh, I can imagine a young you, sitting on a stool while your father is in the operating

08:09room, would you join him sometimes in the singing back then?

08:13Yeah.

08:14Somehow, it sunk into me.

08:16I was very, very young.

08:17And the actual performing part of my opera was, happened when Shirley Temple, she was so

08:27famous, here in the Philippines, how every mother dressed their, their daughters like

08:34her.

08:34Black hair, chinky eyed.

08:38They didn't look like Shirley Temple at all, but they put her, and that's what my mother

08:43did.

08:43She would curl my hair, my black hair, and she would make me sing.

08:50She would ask me to sing for the guests.

08:53So that was my earliest performing.

08:56Wow.

08:56And so when you told your parents that you wanted to pursue a career in singing and continue

09:01performing?

09:03I didn't have to say.

09:04I just was part of it.

09:08And of course, as I grew, I would win declamation medals and oratorical medals.

09:15So I loved the audience.

09:17You were the first Filipina to get into Curtis.

09:19Curtis, that was the work of my teacher in Philippine Women's University.

09:25She scouted, she died early though.

09:30She scouted for the best schools in America.

09:32It was not Juilliard then, just Curtis.

09:36And when I went to audition, I was told that you have to wait for two weeks.

09:40And then as I went down the stairs, the teacher was going to take me, peeked over the railway,

09:50the railings of the stairs.

09:52You will be my student.

09:55Right then and there, after I sang, I don't know what I did.

10:00Oh, did you get nervous still?

10:03I mean, like every performance, even like after how many years, would you still get nervous?

10:08I was more excited.

10:10Actually, if I didn't make it at Curtis, I was planning to go to Europe.

10:14So that's how my fate was decided.

10:17When the teacher who was going to teach me told me, you're in.

10:23I'll tell you something funny.

10:25I was the Philippine, first Filipina.

10:27Yes, at Curtis.

10:28At Curtis.

10:30As a matter of fact, when I got my records.

10:33Ah, the transcript of records.

10:35It says there's race, Mongolian.

10:38I said, oh my God, they didn't know the Philippines.

10:42Oh, okay.

10:42So they just assumed that you were.

10:44Voila.

10:44So, yeah.

10:46So you were the first, you were the first to introduce them to the Philippines.

10:50Oh, what a huge honor as well.

10:52And we're so lucky that you were able to do that for us.

10:55So were you the only Asian when you were studying there?

11:00Or were there others?

11:03My student.

11:04Ah.

11:0540 years after.

11:07Wow.

11:07Only after 40 years?

11:09There was a tenor though.

11:12Not my student.

11:13He was trained in the States.

11:15He got in to Curtis.

11:17That's it.

11:18And then I recommended the tenor.

11:20Later on, much later on.

11:23And he got in.

11:25Noel Velasco.

11:27So you spent a lifetime singing, not just here, but also abroad.

11:34And how did you balance all that out with other things, like with family, with other affairs?

11:41That is my one regret.

11:45I wasn't able to balance it well enough.

11:48Because singing takes so much out of you.

11:52You cannot stay up late.

11:54You cannot catch cold.

11:55So I have to tell my children when they catch a cold, don't come near me, etc.

12:00That's my regret in life.

12:05Why is it important to share?

12:06To share this knowledge and this passion for music?

12:10Well, you don't expect it to die with you when you go.

12:15You have to share.

12:16First of all, people ask me, what does it take?

12:21I said, passion, passion, passion, and share, share, share.

12:26Those are the two things.

12:28Because if you don't share, then it dies with you.

12:34Is that why you got into teaching?

12:36You know, I am not even sure why I got into teaching.

12:40Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

12:42We needed the money.

12:44Oh, that's how it started.

12:46Yes.

12:47My husband wasn't earning too much then.

12:50I would go from house to house to house to house.

12:53I taught in all the schools.

12:57La Concordia, PWU, St. Paul's, just all the schools.

13:02What is the most important thing or the most important lesson that we can learn from music?

13:10The most important letter is to know what's behind the lyrics.

13:17The lyrics first, before the melody.

13:22When you know what it means, then you can impart it better.

13:28If your life were to be told via opera, what kind of opera would that be?

13:36That's a good question.

13:38I don't know.

13:41Imagine that.

13:42All that you've written so far, you never thought about writing your own story in an opera?

13:48Maybe I'd like to write it myself.

13:53Would it be a love story?

13:56Would it be a comedy?

13:59Probably comedy.

14:01Full of laughter.

14:03Actually, the first attention I got from the press as an opera singer was in Fledermaus.

14:12Fledermaus, the flying mouse, it's very funny.

14:18It's a comedy opera.

14:21And I got good reviews.

14:24And that's how they first came to know about you.

14:26Yeah.

14:27Yeah.

14:27And Sisa.

14:29Actually, almost at the same time I did Sisa, 1957.

14:34And you did Sisa for a very long time.

14:3840 years.

14:39Was there a time that you got tired of playing the role of Sisa?

14:43Yeah.

14:44But as I went on, it evolved.

14:47At first, I was doing a lot of movements.

14:51Later on, I became more still.

14:54Okay.

14:54As Sisa.

14:56Do you still remember your very last performance on stage?

14:59My very last would be, for my own composition, I mean, my own libretto, Spoliarium.

15:08I was the mother-in-law of Juan Luna.

15:14You know the story of Juan Luna.

15:16He killed his mother-in-law.

15:18And I'm also proud to say that Miss Kassilag of the CCP, I wrote her last opera.

15:29And I wrote her first opera also.

15:35Her very first, which people have not heard about, Larawa ng Kababaihan, Mascara at Mukha.

15:41And then the last one was, Why Flowers Bloom in May.

15:46She was already blind.

15:48She was almost deaf.

15:50She couldn't talk.

15:51Just so difficult for me to get the music out of her.

15:55But somehow, I managed.

15:58We managed.

15:59Well, your lifetime in music has been spent both on and off the stage.

16:05And you have truly embraced music with such passion, so much love.

16:09And we can see that.

16:10We can see that in you today with all your work.

16:13And I think for me, speaking with you, the best thing I learned, or the most important thing I learned,

16:19is that value of sharing and passing it on to make sure that, like you said, that it continues.

16:26That the legacy continues.

16:28Actually, no.

16:29A lot of people are already writing.

16:32But it's more on musical theater.

16:34But they're writing.

16:35So I think I have done quite something to have started it.

16:42There are very few operas or musical theater in Filipino.

16:48My first question for you, Madam Fidesz.

16:55What is one secret guilty pleasure that you enjoy up to this day?

17:01I have too many guilty pleasures.

17:03Maybe we can tell them about what Ms. Antoinette was saying, that you liked watching your K-dramas until now.

17:12I like watching TV.

17:14Yes?

17:14Yes, of course.

17:16K-dramas?

17:18Korean?

17:19You like the Korean drama?

17:20Korean, yeah.

17:21Korean dramas, this is an advertisement for them.

17:24They always have a lesson at the end.

17:26And very wholesome, too.

17:29If you're going to steal something from the ref without telling anybody, what would that mean?

17:33Ice cream.

17:34Ice cream.

17:36Every singer's no-no is ice cream.

17:39But now you can't.

17:40That's not true.

17:41Oh, it's not?

17:41It's a myth.

17:43The cold of the ice cream doesn't go to the vocal cords.

17:47Oh.

17:48It goes to the esophagus.

17:51So how come singers don't like eating ice cream?

17:54Ah, that's something they hear.

17:56They just make up?

17:58Yeah.

17:59Fides, in your lifetime spent in opera, in the theater, in music, what has made you the happiest?

18:08What about music has made you the happiest?

18:11Whoa.

18:13Like, what has made me the happiest?

18:16When I feel that everything comes into place.

18:21You know, the singers, the story, the orchestra, everything.

18:29That is a thank you, God.

18:33Because so many accidents can happen.

18:35I'll tell you, I'm going back.

18:41The first rock opera, Lapu-Lapu, which I was in, we had an accident.

18:50And then, one of the stage crews fell from high because there was no guardrail.

19:01Those things, they had to stop.

19:03And then, the Magellan, he was impaled on.

19:10Oh, no.

19:11So, every time it all works together, it's a thank you, Lord moment.

19:18Oh, yes.

19:18Madam Fides, thank you so much.

19:21Thank you once again for sharing all your stories with us.

19:24We hope you enjoyed this afternoon looking back and reminiscing about everything.

19:30Thank you so much, ma'am.

19:33Thanks for watching.

19:34Don't forget to like, subscribe, and download PowerTalks with PR Kanghel

19:38on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, GMA Integrated News streaming platforms,

19:43or wherever you listen.

19:44Till the next episode.

19:45We'll see you next time.

20:15We'll see you next time.

20:16Bye-bye.

National Artist Fides Cuyugan Asensio’s legacy to Philippine Opera | Power Talks with Pia Arcangel

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